Google will make Podcasts findable in the search results of their own search engine. The audio recordings are also integrated into Google Assistant, the digital voice assistant, reports the website Pacific Content.

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According to Zack Reneau-Wedeen, a podcast manager at Google, the goal is to double the global volume of podcasts over the next few years. To this end, podcasts appear as a separate category between the search results of Google Search. The first version of the podcast integration in Search is already available on Android devices and Google Assistant, reports Pacific Content .

The website, which says it has received an exclusive look in the kitchen, shows that podcasts appear in the search results of Google Search, including a play button. You can also link to ‘more episodes’, where users can see a complete episode list.

In addition, interested parties can subscribe and manage their possible podcast subscriptions. Via a shortcut that can be placed on the home screen of the smartphone, the user comes in a personalized overview where all subscriptions and episodes can be found, recommendations are made and, for example, the most popular podcasts are displayed.

This service is not yet an independent app at the moment and can not be found in the Play Store. This may change. According to Reneau-Wedeen, it is obvious that a simpler way of accessing the service will be created in the future. He says that many people always search for and listen to podcasts via the search engine, so in his view it was necessary to create a complete podcast player that is easier to access. These new plans from Google regarding podcasts are separate from the podcasts that Google added to Play Music in 2016.

With Google Assistant it is also possible to listen to podcasts. Via a certain voice command the desired podcast is played, something that works both on Android devices and on the Google Home speaker. In addition, Google synchronizes the subscriptions and the listening sessions, so that, as with Netflix, the progression of a particular stream is synchronized on different devices.